so this weekend [[august 14th]] was my 21st birthday. a big thing for americans seeing as we can drink & gamble our lives away *finally* haha just kidding! it was definitely one of the best birthdays i’ve had in a long while! i feel like i’ve reached a big .milestone. in my life. i’ve still got a lot of years to go but twenty one! man, it’s one of those days you feel like you’re never gonna make it to see. when you’re younger, you feel like twenty one is hundreds of years away. it’s weird how life sneaks up on you!

yours truly with an appletini

for my birthday i asked for money [to save for my australia trip, mac, and study abroad] which i got a lot of!!! but i also got a lot of cute things too. maybe i’ll take a collective picture? [i can’t get all of it but i will get the majority.]

+ “lets party!” wine glass

+ handmade “cory 21” martini glass

+ “shoes” martini glass

+ blue fade shot glass

+ “cupcake” chardonnay

+ “C” compact

+ “forever sunshine” shower gel

+ “sweet temptation” body spray

+ scent egg for cars

+ bento box with unicorn

+ necklaces & bracelets

+ elliptical machine

+ lots of drinks

so yeah, i’d say it was a pretty great birthday! i love how i never have to buy shower gel anymore because *everyone* knows i love it and i always get some during gift-giving times! makes life .slightly. less expensive. haha.

Y/U/M

august 13th around 11:30 we went to a little bar that was open until 1:30am so i could get a midnight cosmopolitan and pretend i’m carrie bradshaw for a moment. one drink turned into two and three and next time you know the lot of us are a little silly [except the driver, of course]. they also brought me this deliciouschocolate& peanut butter ice cream with cookies on the bottom that was delicious! [[sorry the picture is bad, but it was kind of dark in there!]]

the morning of the 14th i woke up feeling pretty alright, but a little woozy. [i’m a naturally queezy person & i’m not a morning person so yeaaa…haha] but once i felt alright i went with some friends to the *pool* because i love swimming and enjoying the august heat. then we had lunch at the burger place my sister works where i enjoyed a wrap and a creamsicle shake and was then forced to eat a birthday ice cream cone. chocolate though, yum! haha

"Foster's, Australian for Beer"

after that there was some much needed relaxing because i take after my dad and eating makes me .sleepy. and at 5pm my friends started showing up so we could go to dinner. we went to outback steakhouse because i wanted to have a FOSTER’S because it’s an australian beer and i have an unnatural obsession with australia! so i got to sit at the *bar* like a weirdo twenty one year old person and drink my beer like a weirdo twenty one year old. it was actually quite tasty for beer, but beer isn’t really my thing. needless to say i couldn’t finish that whole thing haha.

so once dinner was over [i had the tilapia and it was .A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.] we headed to the casino to [hopefully not] loose money. i gave myself a limit of $40 because i didn’t want to gamble away all my birthday money. i ended up only betting $28 the collectively. the penny slots were bad to me at first and i lost $3, so i went and put a $20 in thesex and the city machine and lost all but .20 cents of it. then i put in a $5 and won $10 so i walked away for awhile. the rest of the night was spent putting in my $10 game voucher and loosing $4, then winning $6 then loosing $7, etc etc. At the end of the night we were getting ready to leave and I’d stopped gambling about an hour before when i decided to try my voucher one last time before leaving. [after all the casino is not a place i plan to frequent, so i wanted to make the most of it.] i figured, i’ve got about $8 on this ticket, if i loose it, whatever, it’s my birthday.

except i ended up winning $50.57. which was awesome.

so i walked away a slightly richer woman then i had entered with some amazing memories with good friends. i didn’t drink too much or gamble too much but i think i definitely had the total experience of turning twenty one.

now, i’m going to get on my new elliptical and try to burn of the thousands of calories i consumed this weekend. 21st birthday’s are hXc fattening!

i was reading my seventeen earlier this week and though i’m not really a fan of katy perry i couldn’t help but feel totally in-sync with something she said about herself being constantly caught between the material and the spiritual. i thought about how true it is, for myself anyway. it’s hard to find a balance between pleasing yourself and spending time/money/energy/etc on building your life and pleasing god and spending time/money/energy/etc and doing good for others and not yourself. it’s a really delicate balance and i don’t think anyone ever gets it right all the time. but sometimes you feel like you *need* material things [which you obviously don’t but it feels so important in the moment] but you feel the *desire* to help others and make their lives better.

this all kind of came to a head for me earlier because i had a rotton day yesterday and decided this morning i #NEEDED# to have a me day, no questions asked! i booked a spur of the moment hair appointment with a brand new to me stylist for 2pm and i knew this would go one of two ways. 1) i would love my haircut & style and feel oodles better about myself and my life OR2) i would hate my haircut & style and feel like the entire universe was ending right on top of my head. [what is it about humanity that makes us such emotional beings?] still, it was a gamble i was willing to make.

after it was all said and done i really, really liked my hair and the stylist did a great job and took her time and just made the whole thing exactly what i wanted and *needed*. i left feeling so refreshed and awesome and good about myself. [and i better have at least felt refreshed, seeing as my last haircut was november ’09 hehe] and since i was on a role i went ahead and got sushi [with a taro boba tea which i’ve never had but ended up REALLY enjoying! Y/U/M] so i was just spending money like a mad women!

but at the end of the afternoon once i’d finished my sushi & boba and ran my fingers throught my freshly highlighted & trimmed hair, i felt better then i had in weeks. and while i realize that this kind of happiness isn’t the permanent kind, not the kind that you can have forever, it was what i *needed*. i needed a shallow afternoon of hair and take-away sushi just to feel fabulous for a few hours. the problem is, when do you call it quits, take off the [@~~;~~~ remember these? haha] rose colored glasses and get back to “reality”? [i’d like the answer to be never, but lets be realistic, right?]a difficult tightrope to walk, but one we must walk regardless!

so at the end of the day, i had more respect for katy perry [as a person, i still can’t stand the sound of her singing voice]/had better hair/felt less stressed & more fabulous/felt a deep inner dialogue/blah blah blah.

and now that i’ve gotten all that tension out and have stayed up until almost 1am writing this blog post, i must sleep, so that i can get up at 6am to get an oil change for my car!

the cycle continues!

-coco

***EDIT***

i was going to add PICTURES from today BUT my flipshare program wont LOAD and i keep having to force quit it.(i took some video footage intending to cut pictures from the videos. UGH TECHNOLOGY!!!)

so i have been desperately seeking my *place* here on the internet and it’s not as easy as it sounds. i’ve started countless blogs and projects that never quite make it to completion. it’s hard i guess when you feel like your life isn’t exactly news-worthy.

i have a hair appointment at 2:00pm today! i’m excited! i haven’t had a cut/color/anything since last NOVEMBER! seeing as it’s now august, i’m three months away from one year of no hair styling! it’s long overdue! i’m thinking of getting it done in a “bronde” color ala sarah jessica parker & miranda kerr.

this weekend is my 21st birthday which for an american is a big deal because you can legally drink & gamble at 21 y.o. but i have to say i’m not as excited as i feel like i should be. i guess i just don’t see the big deal but maybe that will change when it is all in action, ya know?

i guess i just haven’t been feeling so *hot* in general lately. i’ve been very blah. it’s back to school time and i think i’m just getting nervous for my classes and that jazz. OH WELL! it must be done or i will spend the rest of my life folding t-shirts for a living and i really don’t want to do that! no way! not that i don’t like my job, it’s perfect for right now but i do want to move up eventually so a degree would be good.

anyways, i hope this hairstyling/cut goes well! i will post pictures maybe later this week!

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

.Leo Tolstoy.

“For Attractive lips, speak words of kindness, For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people, For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry, For Beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day, For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.”

.Audrey Hepburn.

“two roads diverged in a yellow wood…i took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.”

.Robert Frost.

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”

.J. R. R. Tolkien.

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”